CODEWITHSUNDEEP
vbapowershell
Kale_T
Kale_T

Reputation: 25

Run Powershell script as administrator in VBA

I am writing a VBA script that send parameters to a Powershell script to create AD accounts. Powershell needs to be running in administrator mode. Down below is how I call the script to run. If anyone could help me in running the application in admin mode that would be amazing!!

strCommand = "Powershell.exe -ExecutionPolicy Unrestricted -file ""<FilePath>""<Parameters>"
Set WshShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
Set WshShellExec = WshShell.Exec(strCommand)

Upvotes: 1

Views: 2580

Answers (1)

mklement0
mklement0

Reputation: 439317

Assuming a file named script.ps1 in the current directory, and arguments foo and bar (alternatively, remove $PWD below and specify the full script file path); -NoExit keeps the elevated console window that is created open after running the script:

strCommand = "powershell.exe -c Start-Process -Verb RunAs powershell.exe \"" -ExecutionPolicy Unrestricted -NoExit -f `\""$PWD\script.ps1`\"" foo bar \"""
Set WshShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
Set WshShellExec = WshShell.Exec(strCommand)

Note the need to call the Windows PowerShell CLI, powershell.exe, twice, nested:

  • First, in order to be able to run the PowerShell-internal Start-Process cmdlet with -Verb RunAs so as to create an elevated (run-as-admin) process, which invariably runs in a new console window. (Note that WshShell.Exec() itself runs asynchronously and provides no direct feedback.)

    • Note that this will present the UAC security dialog to confirm the intent to create an elevated process, and that this dialog can by design only be responded to interactively.

  • Second, as the process to be elevated in order to invoke the target script elevated.

    • Caveat: The elevated target process will see C:\Windows\System32 as its working directory, not the caller's. To use the caller's working directory, you'd have to switch from a -file (-f)-based call to a -command (-c)-based one and execute a Set-Location statement first, which can notably also change how pass-through arguments for the script are interpreted; see this answer.

This complicates quoting, and requires requires that the nested call's " characters be seen as `\" (represented as `\"" inside a VBScript string literal) on the outer call's command line, and the outer call's " as \" (\"" in VBScript).

See this answer for how to construct such a command line for use with many parameters (arguments) algorithmically, via a dictionary of parameter name-value pairs.

Upvotes: 3

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